Website content is more than simply words. Persuasive sales pitches, informative articles and moving essays are just a few of the different types of content typically found on websites. SEO companies understand that the true power of the content included on a website lies not only in what it is saying, but the actual words used to say it. The best content attracts not just the human reader, but the search engine bot as well. In this way, a single piece of content can help you meet your goals with your client base and increase the visibility of your website. Content may very well be the single most important ingredient on a website over which an SEO company, content writer or website owner has control.

The content needs to be more than simply words strung together. Because content is viewed by both human readers and search engine spiders, it must be written to meet both of these goals.

Attract the Human Reader

• Use clear, concise language
• Use proper grammar and spelling
• Create content that is relevant to the reader
• Provide the reader with information they need
• Include a clear ‘Call to Action’ such as ‘sign up now’ or ‘purchase the eBook here.’
• Update content on a regular basis
• Be accurate when representing facts
• Develop a tone or style that is suitable to your needs. For example, if you are seeking to engender trust, use a friendly tone, while those who are attempting to establish themselves as an authority should use a persuasive tone.

Attract the Search Engine ‘Reader’

• Use appropriate and relevant keywords
• Use keywords in the proper density, typically 3 – 5%
• Use bulleted lists or subheadings
• Use keywords in titles, headings and subheadings
• Include frequently updated content

By combining these two lists of content rules, you can begin to develop content that will serve you well. Many SEO companies provide content services themselves or have a third party contractor that provides content, articles and even blogs.

Understanding how to artfully blend the two different types of content writing together will allow you to take advantage of both types of website traffic. SEO companies understand why content is so important. It attracts search engine spiders and bots, which in turn increase the websites rankings and visibility. This increased visibility leads to more visitors. The content will then serve its second purpose of educating, convincing or informing your visitors.

The best content always keeps in mind both audiences. Working with an SEO company that can provide you with this type of content will allow you and your business to succeed.

There are many factors to SEO writing that skilled writers are not aware of, while a SEO copywriter would have knowledge of how to develop better content. But just how does video and games affect SEO copywriting?

A World without Flash

Right now 70% of games and 75% of video on the web is Flash based. Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform that’s used to add video and animation to websites. But if you’re using an iPhone or iPad then you are missing out on a large percentage of the internet. As of press time, Apple and Adobe had not come to an agreement about installing Flash based platforms to their line of iPhones and iPads. Other smart phones still support Flash as part of their browser capabilities. But, Flash takes a long time to load and cannot be read by search engines. All info that is embedded in a Flash file cannot be indexed, and the whole point of SEO is to make your content visible and understandable to the search engines.

No where to go but Up?

How does this affect SEO writers if Flash goes away? Well, many people have thought about this and the answer is on the way. Right now HTML 5 is being developed to alleviate the shortcomings associated with Adobe Flash. HTML 5 in the proposed new standard for HTML, HTML is the markup language for web sites, it is said to reduce the need for plug-ins such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight. Also, font and center tags are eliminated with the new format. The effect that HTML 5 will have on mobile devices is profound. SEO copywriters will be able to develop video and game content that the top search engines will actually be able to index.

How will this change SEO Copywriting

Right now, no one knows just how the change from Flash to HTML 5 will affect SEO writing. We know that video will be indexed and searchable, but how will this change the way writers go about creating content for websites? With new tags and improved page segmentation it should make writing for websites much more accessible. The important thing to do is make sure that you find a SEO copywriter who has the changes figured out.

There is one fundamental difference between SEO copywriters, and freelance writers who are not familiar with SEO. Skilled SEO writers are not writing for one audience, but two. Everything written for the web should be written for both readers and search engines. Most freelance copywriters are writing only for the client as an audience.

Keywords in Web Content

This distinction becomes most evident in the use of keywords. There is both an art and a science to the use of keywords for web copy. They must be grammatically correct, yet represent search terms visitors will actually use. Keywords should be unique to the website, and not overly competitive. Keywords that fit this criteria are hard to find, however. In addition, keywords cannot be over or underused in web copy, and should be placed in particular areas of the content for maximum affect. Writers who are new to SEO often have a hard time utilizing keywords with finesse. When used properly, readers should not notice them at all.

How Relevant is Your Web Content?

Relevancy plays an important role in page rank. Relevancy is used to describe how well the content of a page matches the search term that points to it. Highly relevant page content will be focused specifically upon the main keywords used. For example, if the search term used for a site is “Women’s wholesale clothing” then the content of that page should focus only on wholesale apparel for women. It should not mention men’s clothing, or anything that is not related to the keyword. By making relevancy a factor in ranking a page, search engines ensure that when users click on a result, they will actually find the information they are looking for.

Writing For Readers and Search Spiders

Writing content for spiders is not fundamentally any different than writing for readers. Copy should be written in full sentences, and should be grammatically correct. In addition, certain aspects of good SEO copywriting are beneficial to both audiences. Subheadings, bulleted lists, and other methods of breaking up blocks of text make reading easier. This kind of formatting helps leads visitors through the content, and the use of bold or italicized text indicates to spiders which areas of the content are the most important.

SEO writing is both a science and an art, and no good web content writer can function without knowing the basics of optimization, or knowing the client’s audience inside and out. It’s always best to work with a dedicated team of writers who take the time and effort to get to know the goals of the website, and the people who will use it.

At its heart, SEO is aimed at attracting not human readers, but search engine spiders. Because of this, content written solely from a search engine optimization perspective is often difficult for a human reader. This content is often stilted and contains grammatical errors. For example, a company that sells homemade jam in Brooksville, Florida is likely to determine that a common search term used to locate their business may be ‘homemade jam Brooksville, Florida’ and decide to use that phrase exactly throughout their website. While spiders may recognize this as a common search term, human readers are unlikely to respond to it. It is for this reason, savvey online business owners turn to SEO copywriting to achieve their goals.

SEO copywriting is directly related to generalized SEO techniques with one major difference: SEO copywriting strives to attract both human readers and search engine spiders. A talented copywriter can artfully blend keywords, in the proper density, with unique, relevant and informative content. When you consider the fact that your website and the content contained within it is actually the face and voice of your company, you begin to realize how important it is to write for both human readers and spiders.

Developing content that is easy to read and contains the necessary techniques and language to attract spiders is, in effect, a subset of generalized search engine optimization. When selecting a company to handle your optimization, one of the critical areas you should review is their ability to provide SEO copywriting. By reading several articles or webpages written by various copywriters, you will begin to see the difference between copy written by a general SEO specialist and one with experience in SEO copywriting. By carefully analyzing possible keywords and including them in the proper density, a skilled SEO copywriter will provide you with copy that is driven by the need to attract human customers while still increasing your page rankings.

The distinction between SEO copywriting and simple SEO may be slight, but it is very significant. At the end of the day, it is the difference between copy written solely in an attempt to include a requisite number of keywords and content written to provide readers with useful information. Choosing an SEO firm must be based, at least in part, on their ability to provide you with content that is written by someone who has a firm understanding of the difference between these two skill sets.

Many online business owners get stuck on the first step of content creation:  what type of content to include. The truth is that all content is good – as long as it is properly written, keyword rich and relevant. Topics should be closely related to your product or service. It should be fresh, professionally written and include keywords that are both relevant and unique.

You may choose from several different types of content, each equally valid. Blogs are a popular addition. Easy to write, personal and a favorite hunting ground for spiders, blogs can be an excellent addition to almost any website. Another option is SEO articles. Unlike article marketing, an SEO tactic in which articles are posted to various directories for increased visibility, placing articles directly on your website gives you a chance to educate your client base, present yourself as an authority and increase your rankings.

If we have learned that the type of content we include on our website really doesn’t matter, we should also know that the form of the written content does. In order to obtain maximum benefits, you must tailor your content to appeal to both human readers and spiders. When writing or proofreading content for your site keep in mind the differences.

Content for Spiders

This content must be keyword rich. Focus on 2 – 3 keywords per page and mind your density. Keyword density, or the number of times a keyword is used compared to the total amount of text, should be between 3 and 5%.  Spiders also like fresh content, so be sure to plan on updating your website regularly.

Content for Humans

Humans don’t read articles like spiders – we look at more than how many times a given word or phrase is included in a piece of text. For this reason, your content should be easy to read. Here is how:

• Use bullets or numbering to make important facts stand out
• Write short paragraphs of less than 10 sentences
• Use shorter sentences
• Use flawless grammar and spelling

Always remember it is less about the type of content that you include and more about how you create it. Be sure to keep your content clear and concise. If writing isn’t your strong suit, you may want to find a qualified SEO copywriter to work with. There are many professionally trained companies dedicated to providing businesses with the best possible content.

Writers for SEO companies will, of course, continue to be responsible for creating readable content that is arranged and worded in such a way that it generates traffic, but they may also find themselves expanding their technical skill set. Sear Engine marketing, after all, is much more complicated than simply repeating a phrase throughout an article. Writers who can claim proficiency in XHTML, search engine algorithms, and site design will have an edge in a burgeoning field. Writers with extensive SEM experience may even find themselves becoming consultants and teachers for the new wave of SEM writers this growth is ushering in. In fact, many companies already offer in-house training, presentations, and auditing for companies interested in making the most of search engines.

However, even as the more established places finally come around, the field remains tainted by black hat tactics. Spamdexing, the catchphrase for such tactics, is when illegitimate sites manipulate a search engine’s index and resources to improve their placement in search results. Though most search engines, including Google, have ways to combat and minimize such methods, it’s impossible to cut out completely. As such, any serious web content writer needs to have a code of ethics rivaling that of any journalist.

The poor reputation earned by black hat SEO may be part of the reason why some content-heavy websites have yet to adopt it. FOX News, for example, plans to begin charging users instead for its web content. They claim that people will pay for content if it is original and high quality. Yet part of the problem with such models is the assumption that optimized content isn’t equally capable of generating business and quality traffic. A good SEO article will be succinct and encourage readers to surf around the site the search engine brought them to. In this way, poorly written articles that beat you over the head with keywords might be just as bad for SEO’s reputation as link farms or keyword stuffing, two black hat tactics. It remains vital that writers for SEO companies continue to create engaging content.

Social media, much like SEM, is becoming another fundamental of online marketing. Even better, the two make a great pair since part of SEO is linking and being linked to and social media is an easy way to achieve this. Writers, then, are also likely to increasingly utilize social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to generate additional traffic for their articles, parent sites, and companies. As an added benefit, social media can be a great way to draw regular readership and develop a niche audience.

The start of this new decade already seems to be about writers for search engine marketing companies embracing the latest in internet media and technology and avoiding the well-established damaging practices like spamdexing. Seeing the top web fields grow and work together should make for a decade that’s worth writing in and about.

Unnecessary wordiness. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery knew the value of a succinct writing style. If you feel like the writer is still talking, but not telling you anything new, you know that the piece has a problem. See also: using “to be” (or is, are, were, was) too much and general overuse of the passive voice.

No direction to the work. The level of involvement for every client/writer is different. Some clients want to simply be able to pass on a list of keywords, and get back useful articles. Make it clear that you expect your writers to develop the topic further. If you give them the keyword “Bandsaw,” make sure that they know you expect something with the title “How to use a bandsaw to build furniture.” Sometimes communication can make the difference between a good writer, and a bad one. Just make sure your SEO writer is both willing and able to develop your topics fully. If they can’t, it’s time to send them packing.

Failure to understand the purpose of the piece. You can waste a lot of money on copywriters if you’re dealing with ‘artists’ rather than commercial writers who understand your goals and objectives. If you need an article on the benefits of Vitamin B for an affiliate marketing site, and you get an article that says Vitamin B is useless, it won’t matter how well it’s written. If your writers don’t understand what the purpose of the piece is, then they’re not helping you.

Obvious grammar, spelling, and word choice mistakes. The good writer is constantly self-editing and striving to create the perfect sentence that communicates his or her ideas exactly. The bad writer does not reflect on their writing during composition nor does he or she comprehensively edit after writing. This is the sloppiness that creates bad writing. While even the best writers occasionally have a typo, consistent errors are a big red flag.

Figuring out whether what you are reading is “good” is a little more complicated. Bad writing loudly declares itself within a sentence or two, but often a work has to be read for a page or more before the reader can really discern whether it is quality writing.

However, there are a few important elements that are often present in good writing. A great piece of copywriting should not only be to the point, but have a clear point, and it should make that point with well organized, logical ideas. The reader should be able to read the work in the writer’s “voice,” which must be distinct and apparent. A good writer uses correct grammar and a varied vocabulary. Finally, and most importantly, good writing is interesting. The reader wants to read it – reading a well written piece is never work.

The purpose behind a blog is to increase your search engine rankings. Content is by far the best method for attracting search engines, and populating search pages with URLS that lead directly to you.

Google likes Content, and when you consistently publish articles on particular subjects and keywords, you look like an expert in that field, and your site is ranked accordingly. Google also recognizes that your site is frequently updated, and therefore, more valuable to search engine users.

There are many ways to utilize content on your site. How you set up your blog, and the types of content you use should reflect your company goals. Here are some important questions to ask yourself:

• What is your end goal for your blog?
• Do you want to increase Traffic to your site?
• Do you want to showcase special products or services?
• Do you want your URL to show up in more results on web searches?
• Do you want to set yourself up as an expert /celebrity in your industry?

Of course, you want all of these things, but to get the result you need, you will first need to prioritize your goals. Decide which is most important to you, and then use that as a framework for building your blog.

for example, if you own a company that sells swimwear, and your goal is to become known as the top knowledge base for swimmers, then you will need to approach your blog as a place to showcase ideas, information, and helpful advice. You won’t want to make a hard sell – you’ll rely on links anchored with your keywords to lead people to your products. If you have good content, you’ll get a dedicated following of readers, and they will be directed to your site through means like hyperlinks and your blogroll.

If, on the other hand, you want to be known as the top resource for buying swimwear, then your approach may be quite different. Instead of focusing on the sport of swimming, you may focus on how certain products can give swimmers a competitive advantage. You may showcase great deals on your blog, or lead customers who are searching for a particular product from your blog, right to the purchase point on your site.

Both of these approaches can be extremely effective, but you should know your goals beforehand, or else you risk a blog without purpose that jumps from one style to another, and doesn’t really meet anyone’s needs. It’s possible to use your blog both as an arena for showcasing your expertise, and as a direct sales tool, but in order to properly balance the two, you will need to plan this from the beginning.

There are some things you can do while you’re deciding on a strategy for your blog. Here’s a list of some things that you will want to set up first:

Keywords – your keywords are the main factor on which your blog’s success will be determined. Don’t start out with more than you can handle. Use a narrow focus to choose about 5 main keywords that you will use to direct people to your site through SEO. These should be long-term keywords that won’t change.

Anchor text – For the purposes of search engines, it’s a good idea to use your five keywords as the anchor text of your hyperlinks. This will tell search engines that the words that are linked are the most important words on your site. When people search for these words, the goal is for them to find you. When choosing keywords, try to choose a few that are unique to your particular product or service. “Goggles” will not serve you quite as well as “swim goggles” will.

Links – All links on your blog should reflect your purpose. If you’re using the blog as either a direct, or indirect sales tool, you’ll want your blogroll links to go to your site, or categories on your site. If you are using your blog to cement your authority as an industry leader, you may use some of your links to point to pages of articles on your website, or other valuable information for readers.

Tags - Tags still carry weight. Be sure you’re tagging all your articles, site pages, links, and images appropriately. Your tags should be consistent with your keyword selection.

Well, there’s a short answer to your question, and a long one. I’ll give you both.

The short answer is that only well written content, plenty of high quality links, and maybe some Pay Per Click advertising will increase your traffic. It’s going to require some investment.

Here’s the long answer:

The Do It Yourself option is kind of obsolete in terms of SEO. Because search engines have gotten more sophisticated, there are a lot more facets of the process that you need to be familiar with in order to compete with the people who have good campaigns going already. There are definitely some things you can do yourself, but by and large, you should prepare yourself to get some help in dealing with all the various aspects of building organic and paid traffic. Here are some things you need to look into:

Content: This is something you can do yourself, but most people get tired of it after a while. It’s the most important aspect of your site. You need to make sure your site information is well written, and interesting to read. This is so much more than just putting in the right keywords. Even if something is stellar from an SEO standpoint, it won’t do much good if users aren’t really reading it. There are some good copywriting companies out there that can fill your site affordably. You also need to make sure that your content is going all over the web, and building good links back to you.

PPC : You’ll need pay per click ads with something like Google AdWords to get traffic to your site while organic traffic builds. This is something you need help with. It’s tempting to run a PPC campaign yourself to save money, but it’s really inefficient that way. You need someone who really knows how to find good keywords, manage bids, and change up the strategy constantly.

Links: Links are really big for getting you traffic, but they have to be in the right places. Google knows where all the spam is, so links that come from places like article directories won’t be as strong as a link that comes from someplace like YouTube. Try to get links posted on sites with a high page rank. That’ll help you out. Build links like crazy. You can do this yourself, too, but it does get really tedious.

Local Search: Make sure you’re doing some local SEO, too. Associate your site with your town, and put yourself in Google maps if you have a business. You can do this one yourself.

Long story short, if you really know SEO, then you probably didn’t learn anything new here, but if you’re kind of new to it, you might as well resign yourself to investing some money in marketing, probably with more than one company.

For more information contact the writer @ melinda@iwebcontent.com

As any SEO expert will tell you, all long-term organic results will rely on text, whether in the form of blogs, articles in directories, syndication through RSS feeds, social media, or even meta tags. For some applications, creating this text is as simple as researching keywords, and writing page descriptions. For the vast majority of web copy, however, the writing will be seen by end users, and as a representative of your client, it needs to be articulate, useful copy.

While some SEO firms have the manpower to employ a full time copywriter, most do not. This leaves the burden of content creation to employees that may or may not be equipped to handle it. Client work can suffer when the appropriate person for the job isn’t used. As any company providing a service to a client, it’s always a good idea to outsource tasks to the experts. Many search engine optimization companies have started to partner with SEO copywriters in order to ensure that clients have both the benefits of perfectly optimized pages, and thought provoking content that provides value to readers.

Of course, it’s important to choose copywriting services carefully. While there are many excellent writers out there, not all of them will understand the intricacies of SEO. They may not be able to juggle both writing toward the proper keyword densities and key phrases, and writing effective content at the same time. You should make sure that you use writers with a firm background in SEO and marketing, so that your text has the most impact possible. Text written by an unskilled writer will have no one to read it, and excellent writing that lacks the punch to sell a product or idea will be ineffective. You will need to invest in writers who understand the mechanics of search engine optimization, and have the ability to persuade your audience.

The cost of skilled writers can vary, so it’s important to choose a company that charges a fair price. The best way to determine your budget is to estimate how much time it would take you to write something. The writer should cost less to pay than it would cost to pay you in that time. Remember that in many cases, you get what you pay for with copywriting. Writers in India and Southeast Asia will write for pennies on the dollar, but the quality will not be suitable for readers, and will probably upset clients as well. The writers that you choose should have a solid background in the industry of copywriting and marketing both.

You will not find many individual freelance writers who have the entire skill set you need. Those that do will charge a premium for their knowledge. Copywriting companies will have qualified writers, and in most cases, will charge a standard rate for services. $18 – $25 per 500 words is a fairly standard rate for top quality content from ghostwriting services.